We have an Epson RX425, which is a 5 year old color laserjet. It should be in more or less perfect condition, because we only had ink for it for about, oh, four months, and the rest of the time it’s mostly been used only as a scanner. But I got new ink for it, and after an exceedingly frustrating couple hours of running color test pages, I finally got all four cartridges to actually print their little wavy lines that indicated yes, they were all functional.

Literally immediately upon managing this, the printer announced it was out of ink and will not print anything at all. Now, not only are they brand-new (and brand-name) cartridges so they shouldn’t be out of ink, if I shake the little fuckers I can hear the ink sloshing around. Shaking, however, does not loosen whatever is causing the printer to think it has no ink. Neither does hitting it, swearing at it, or rebooting it.

Does anybody have *any* goddamned clue what I should try next? Don’t suggest defenestrating, because I’m already pissed off and have no sense of humor left about this.